Description

Build a festive masterpiece with Lauren Bohl White’s classic Gingerbread House Recipe. Fragrant with cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, this sturdy dough bakes into the perfect base for creative holiday decorating. Finished with strong, glossy royal icing, it’s a joyful way to fill your kitchen with warmth, spice, and seasonal spirit.

Ingredients

Scale

6 ½ cups (850g) all-purpose flour
¾ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground nutmeg
¼ tsp ground cloves
¾ tsp salt
7/8 cups (7oz or 198g) vegetable shortening
7/8 cups (6oz or 170g) granulated sugar
16fl oz molasses
1 egg

For the Royal Icing:

8 oz (226g) powdered sugar
2 tbsp + 1 ½ tsp meringue powder
3 tbsp + 1 ½ tsp water + more as needed

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Sift dry ingredients together in bowl and set aside.
Melt shortening in microwave or on stovetop until it turns to liquid but not hot.
In the bowl of a stand mixer with paddle attachment, mix shortening, sugar, and molasses together. Add in the egg and mix until well combined.
Add in flour mixture and mix until combined and until a smooth ball forms, do not over mix.
Divide dough into two. On a piece of plastic wrap, press one of the halves into a rectangle approx. ½ thick, wrap, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
When ready to roll out and cut shapes, pull dough from fridge, let warm up for 5-10 minutes. Roll dough out on a lightly floured surface to an even ¼ inch thickness. If you have guards for your rolling pin, use the ¼ inch guards.
Cut shapes out using your templates. Remove excess dough which can be used to re-roll and make more pieces.
Bake on parchment paper or Silpat for 50-60 minutes until very firm.
Let gingerbread fully cool before moving. It is now ready to be assembled!
Make Royal Icing: Rule #1 in making royal icing, grease is your enemy and will create weak and crumbly icing, start by washing your mixing bowl, whisk, and bowl scraper really well in soapy water; this also goes for pipping bag, coupler, and pipping tips if you are using them. In mixing bowl, fitted with a whisk attachment mix powdered sugar and meringue powder. Add in water slowly, reserve 1 ½ teaspoon to add if mixture is too stiff, add more water if necessary but you want a stiff icing to build your gingerbread house. Mix on high for 5 minutes to build the strength of your icing.
Once icing has mixed and is stiff peak consistency, it is ready to use and build your house and decorate. Stiffness is key to keeping things in place, you can always add water to a smaller amount of royal icing to thin it out a bit more for pipping decorative details.

Notes

Tips: Not everyone has reusable or disposable pipping bags on hand, another easy option is using quart Ziplock bags as your pipping bag and trimming a small tip off of one corner to pipe the icing through; cut only a little bit to start and then trim more if needed.

The key to building a sturdy gingerbread house is to build it on a cake board/plate or platter. Pipe a line of royal icing on the bottom edge of each wall and then the corners so the walls attach to the board or plate. Don’t be afraid to use a jar to act as a wall support as you are assembling walls.